The present invention relates generally to wireless input/output (I/O) systems for computer systems, and more specifically to reconfiguring an ID code associated with a receiver to enable a receiver to respond to data packets tagged with the ID code sent from a desired transmitter.
Wireless input/output systems have proliferated over the last few years. The systems typically include a transmitter associated with a device, such as a keyboard or mouse. A receiver is coupled to the appropriate I/O port on a computer system, and the device communicates to the computer system by broadcasting data signals from the transmitter to the receiver. This solution is simple and efficient, yet has problems when multiple devices are used on one or more computer systems.
Wireless I/O solutions developed a solution to this problem of associating data packets sent from each transmitter with a unique ID code. A receiver that was to operate with a particular transmitter would be matched by associating the receiver with the same ID code. The receiver would accept only those data packets having the associated ID code and reject all other data packets.
The solution was effective, but introduced yet another complication in that users wanted to be able to use a device on different computer systems or otherwise change the interrelationship between various device(s) and the one or more computer systems. The solution that was developed was to provide each receiver with a reconfiguration button. When activated, the reconfiguration button would put the receiver into a reconfiguration mode and a subsequent transmission from a transmitter with a particular ID would cause the receiver to associate itself with the newly transmitted ID code embedded in the data packet. The solution did not require a change to the transmitter data packets or use of different transmitted information.
One disadvantage to these solutions is that it is not always readily apparent to a user which transmitter it is associating with the receiver. Additionally, the reconfiguration buttons can at times be small and hard to access/activate, making the reconfiguration of the receiver inconvenient at times.